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After a Crown lawyer finished reciting the list of grotesque sexual offences James McTurk committed against Cuban girls as young as 3, the 78-year-old man was handcuffed and taken back to jail where he could spend the rest of his life.

McTurk, with close cropped hair and wearing a Canadian Legion jacket, had moments earlier uttered the word that Toronto police investigators have been waiting to hear since they arrested him last summer: “Guilty.”

On Friday, McTurk became the first Canadian convicted of sex crimes committed against children in Cuba, admitting to one count of making child pornography, another of importing child pornography, three counts of sexual interference involving touching young girls with his mouth, hands and penis, and a final count of invitation to sexual touching.

Prosecutors are now considering seeking a dangerous offender order against McTurk — a move which could see various restrictions placed on him, including keeping him behind bars for the rest of his life.

The retired postal worker is the first person to be charged by Toronto police with the little-used child sex tourism offences, the first involving Cuban children and just the sixth known conviction under the law in Canada.

Following the investigation, Public Safety Minister Vic Toews acknowledged a shortcoming in the law that required reform.

“We are consulting with experts in the field and on the ground and working toward preventing traffickers and offenders from travelling abroad,” Toews’ spokeswoman, Julie Carmichael, said in a written statement Friday. “We are committed to putting an end to the sexual exploitation of children, no matter where it may occur.”

Despite two previous convictions for child pornography — in 1995 and 1998 — and being placed on the sex offender’s registry, McTurk was free to travel. The court was told that he made 31 trips to the island, between 2009 and his arrest in July 2012.

Toronto police began investigating McTurk when he went to a North York Loblaws to have pictures from a trip to Cuba printed, and what the photo clerk saw — images of unsmiling, topless little girls — alarmed her.

“The employee at the photo lab became concerned about these photos because the girls appeared to be frightened,” said Crown attorney Anna Stanford. Police were called, and detectives executed a search warrant at McTurk’s address.

Officers arrested McTurk on July 24, 2012, at Toronto’s Pearson International Airport, as he returned home from yet another trip to Cuba.

“Shame on Canada for allowing this individual who was found with pictures from Cuba many years ago to just go back and forth willy-nilly,” said Roz Prober, president of Beyond Borders which fights global child abuse. “We have to do more with our hard-core pedophiles who are child sex tourists. because the damage they are doing is tremendous for children.”

Graphic evidence of the images and videos discovered in McTurk’s North York apartment and on digital cards he carried when he was arrested were entered into evidence in court. Stanford quietly read detailed descriptions of what detectives found.

They included close-up images of the body parts of young girls, and McTurk in sexual situations with the same children. In one video, Stanford said, McTurk is seen forcing his tongue into a 3-year-old girl’s mouth.

“He continuously pulls her to him as she appears to resist, and repeatedly inserts his tongue into the child’s mouth,” she said, reading from an agreed statement of facts. “He then gives the child a candy and lets her go.”

In an interview with detectives after his arrest, McTurk said he knew one of the grandmothers of the girls in the images, who he met two decades ago in Cuba.

“She was on the beach and was hungry, so he fed her,” Stanford told the court. “He maintained contact with her and stayed with her and her family regularly when he visited Cuba. He gave her a couple hundred pesos — approximately $240 — each time he visited.”

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